Saturday, October 8, 2011

In this episode, I talk with David Torrente about the recent flights we have taken together. All of them were up to Nashua NH to meet the gang at the UCAP meet-up. All three of them were somewhat adventurist and we learned a lot from them. We discuss what happened, our decisions, why we made the decisions and most importantly what we learned from each flight. So if you want to hear what happened along the way to Nashua, please join us in the virtual hangar. I hope you enjoy the discussion and maybe even learn something from it.

As always, I had goals for this flight. One was to go on a cross-country flight. This is the one area where I would like to improve upon. Most of my hours up until this year have been either spent practicing or short sight-seeing trips around LI. I really want to fly more XC flights and get more comfortable landing at unfamiliar airports. As you will hear from this episode, Dave has more experience than me in XC flying and there is no one better to fly them with.

A second goal was to meet the Jack and the gang for brunch at the midfield café. Isn’t that what getting your PPL is all about? Flying to an airport with a good restaurant to hang out with friends.

Not only were these goals met, but as you will hear, we had some practice de-icing a plane and diverting to other airports.

Dave & Jack in conversation.

Kristen and Len from the Stuck Mic AvCast.

Myself, Dave and Jack.

Dave, Rick and Dorrie in front of Rick's 172

The gang chatting after a good meal

Waiting for take-off. (Photo by Jeff Ward)

Rick next to his plane

Shoutouts:

1) David Torrente, an excellent pilot and great flying companion. I look forward to many more XC flights with him. Hopefully not as eventful as our last few.

2) Jack Hodgson for arranging the meetups. They are a lot of fun. A great opportunity to meet up with friends that you only see at aviation events.

3) Dave Pascoe from LiveAtc.net, Rick Felty and Len Costa from the Stuck Mic AvCast (it was also great meeting Rick’s wife Dorrie and Len’s girlfriend Kristen), Jeff Ward from behind the scenes at UCAP, Rick Sheppe and Jim Goldman who were at the meetup.

4) A big shoutout to Bradley approach who helped us find the airport when we needed to land.